Dang, PE, that's intense. Glad you made it through.

Sorry about your car. I know the pain of losing a Camry that has been your trusty companion. It was only life-or-death for the deer involved, though (death). I cannot match your tales.

Well, OK, I guess the closest would be the time that I was hit (in a prior Camry) by an 18-wheeler that ran a red light. But since I was actually hit by it, and didn't die or get seriously injured, I'm not sure if that counts as life or death. Anybody in the passenger's seat would have been a goner -- car spun around several times, passenger's side was pushed in a good foot, and the PS mirror ended up by my foot. But I was fine apart from a little neck stress. Exciting evening all the same.

I think it's pretty hard to say "I got hit by an 18-wheeler while driving my Camry" doesn't count as a life-or-death situation... I'm glad you're alright, that's really rough to say the least. I can't even imagine what actually being hit and sent flying is like. (Truthfully I'm a bit curious... but not curious enough to find out. Haha.)

Poor deer. You killed Bambi's mom!

Yeah... don't bother finding out. ; )

I didn't really go flying, more spinning. It was extremely disorienting. I remember very well the moment right before, when I thought, "Oh dang, that thing's going to hit me" and tried to speed past, and then I was spinning around. And then it stopped, and I got out, and was quite dizzy, and felt sad about my car, which I knew without looking was through. People called an ambulance and stuff, and the driver came over fairly distraught and very apologetic, but mostly I just sat there very annoyed that, even though I knew the intersection very well, I was too disoriented to figure out what direction I was facing or which corner was which. I could see things, but couldn't pull up my mental map of the place at all.

It was really sad losing the car, though the second one was even more traumatic, especially as I nearly got it back and waited slightly too long. Long story, though, and interesting to none but me.

I will say though -- that car (18 wheeler one) still drove straight and turned fine. The body was destroyed but the frame was perfect. Danged strong little car.

Hah, that's rather calm for such a harrowing situation! I'm the same way, and I don't get why. When I left the road tonight and the brakes failed, I distinctly remember just going "...aw, no." Absolutely calm and controlled, just looked at it like "Oh, this is going to be inconvenient" as I went plummeting toward what could easily have been death. And this happens in every single situation. It's sure not a lack of fear of death, or a lack of awareness of the stakes involved in these situations. I don't get it, but I guess I should be okay with it.

I bet it's not as boring as you say. ;) The main disappointment here without a doubt is the loss of the car, but considering that's literally the only major negative from this situation, I guess that's not saying much.

That's a really tough car. Goodness. It's too bad it went by the wayside, I bet it would still be working now!

It is funny, it's true. Similarly here, it's certainly not lack of fear in general or the like; just kind of a detachment that sets in at such times, I guess. I imagine it could perhaps be useful in less inflexible situations.

Yeah. I got really attached to both of my cars (which were exactly the same model, by design).

Easily the most harrowing of the situations you describe would be the first April '11 one, I think, followed by December '10. That's as much stress as I can imagine.

When I got muscle spasms while swimming in a rather cold and deep lake, my first thoughts weren't to yell "Save me, I'm drowning!" on the friend accompanying me, I rather contemplated on the possibility whether such a global no-event would appear in local newspaper and what my mum will think about it. It's probably the intense nature of these situations that makes us feel more detached than in much less serious situations.

lost control of my motorcicle 150 kh flew away about 100 meters landed on my back still concient only to see my motorcicle landing on my head.

I dunno, I worry that it might bleed over into daily life too much. Haha. I have a tendency to put things off and put things off and then put an immense amount of pressure on myself by stacking a bunch of assignments together and then doing them all at once. (And I mean, I do them well... they're not half-assed by any stretch. I actually find I think clearer when I do this than when I have time to work on them, so they come out *better* for it!)

I wonder... haha. Something about the model must strike your fancy. What is it?

Oh, no doubt. That... I think saying I wasn't scared isn't entirely true there. Fear I'd say the wrong thing, fear I'd make the slightest of wrong moves, fear (in the first case) that the campus police I'd called when I saw the first attempt wouldn't arrive in time to help me, I definitely felt all those things, but it was all controlled and tempered by this almost eerie calm and clarity of thought I don't ever seem to experience otherwise. And yeah those were easily the worst, the car troubles, despite being physically more threatening by far, were nothing by comparison

life threatening, oeh, well, I don't know if these count, but: I've had a bull with his head on my chest a couple of times, especially if your back is on the ground, against a fence or against a wall and in any of the cases he starts pushing, that's quite scary I can tell you. Luckily there were other people around.
Phew, then I almost forgot to mention that once I sat on a horse that all of a sudden thought it'd be nice to have a bath in the river we were riding through. I could jump of it in time, resulting in only wet feet.
Or the time I was doing 150kmh/90mph on the Autobahn (road was next to empty), then someone decides to overtake (without using their blinkers) a truck with 90kmh/55mph without ever looking into their mirrors, and all at the very same moment when you're 200m/650ft behind them.

PE - Not sure what you're doing to have that kind of track record, but I'm guessing it's time for a change.

Anyhow, I'll share a story. When I was in my early twenties, I was hanging out with some friends playing dnd at one of their apartments in the ghetto. There were other people there that weren't playing (ones I didn't know) and some psycho chick got irritated at something I said (not sure what) and she started getting mouthy. I jokingly told her that she didn't know who I was and that I was essentially a ninja warrior. She pulled a knife out on me and directed my attention to the fridge where she posted a note bragging about how she was an accomplice to a murder (in reality, she was just haning out with the guy who did the real work and did none of it herself). I told her to shut up, she kept getting mouthy and we all left.

Wow, PE. That's pretty intense. Glad you're okay.

I'm bad with dates, so I'll just make mine "period of life" datestamped.

Middle school: I had bronchitis, but faked being well because I really wanted to get second chair trumpet in band. I went to school like normal, went to gym, then went to band for the try-out. After band, I collapsed in the stairwell, unable to breathe due to the strain put on my lungs from doing so much while I was ill. This caused an asthma attack and I needed mouth to mouth resuscitation in order to live. I was hospitalized for a week, but the good news is, I got second chair trumpet.

Early college: I worked at a Rite Aid, and was held up at gunpoint. Not much to say about that other than...you know how they tell you to do whatever the robber says? Yeah, that's good advice. I did help convict the guy, though.

Late college: I did study abroad in Hong Kong and one night decided to go explore the city. I found an out of the way video game arcade with some cool new games, including a version of Super Street Fighter II that wasn't out in the states yet. I gladly put some money into that and beat the guy I was against, and as I waited for the next guy to put his money in, I felt a knife in my back. A guy told me to lose the game, and I did, and he stayed there with the knife. "Put another coin in and lose." Okay. This until I was totally out of coins. Then, they let me leave. I found out later from a friend who lives in Hong Kong that the gangs bet on the outcome of arcade games, and I clearly messed up their pool.

Some time after that: I was working 13 hour shifts, and had just gotten out of work, and there was a blizzard. It was 4 am. I was supposed to drive 6 hours to my parents' house with my girlfriend, who'd been sleeping since 10, and I told her that either she needed to drive or we were going to put it off til noon. So, anyway, there I was, driving at 4 am in a blizzard with her sleeping in the passenger seat. I was driving a Honda CRX, which is a tiny car not suited for blizzards anyway. Only one lane was plowed, and we were stuck behind an 18 wheeler going 20 mph. I was pretty confident that it was reasonable to go at least 35-40, so when I saw the other lane plowed, I went to pass. Only it wasn't really plowed, it was just about 100 yards of it that was plowed because there was a median access for snowplows. I hit the end of the plowed portion and started to skid, the CRX facing directly at the 18 wheeler. I adjusted the wheel until I was facing the concrete abutment on the other side. Turned the wheel, 18 wheeler. Turned it back, abutment. 18 wheeler. Abutment. 18 wheeler. Abutment. Eventually, I got the car to stop, and just stayed there, taking a deep breath. At which point my girlfriend woke up and said, "Are we in the ditch?"

It took every ounce of self control I had to not put her in the ditch.

Glad you are ok PE. Sorry for the car dude.
But seriously man having so many life or death situations so young should worry you.
I'm 33 and I had none so far. Just one situation where I could have been injured but nothing fancier.

One of my neighbours, Reggie, a man in his mid 40's hung himself last week.
I was out in the street chatting to another neighbour, Dave we saw Reggie's partner
(they were not married ) drive past us & into her driveway. A few minutes later she
came running out screaming.
Dave & I ran in, saw Reggie hanging, we cut him down & I tried the resus & CPR
caper without success.
The ambulance chaps said I had no chance of reviving him, he had been dead at least an hour or two.
Reggie leaves a small boy and a devestated partner to cope without him.

I will give anyone contemplating hanging themselves a tip, it is not pretty or pleasant way to go. There were unmistakable signs of a ghastly struggle, the body "voids" itself,
and the contorted face....

Drive and / or ride motorcycles long enough & you will have those moments.
When I lived in the Northern Terrritory (of Australia, long roads with, at the time
an "open speed" limit ) I was travelling from Kunanurra in Western Australia back to
Katherine, motoring along at a lazy 180 to 200 kph, came around a bend (at night )
to be confronted by cattle crossing the road, dodged the beast, but lost control,
endured a sickeningly long skid with smoke from the tyres peeling over the bonnet,
trees flashing by, I think the car did about four 360 degree rotations.
Eventually stopped in a cloud of dust & tyre smoke, no damage to car or driver.
That was in 1994, and in a three month old Toyota Camry wagon.
How the car did not flip & roll, or hit a tree I do not know.

when I was younger, early 1980's I was in a car being driven by my girlfriend,
we started to have a bit of a verbal dispute, she started driving faster and faster,
I gave up on the verbal disagreement and was saying
" I think we should slow down a bit " when she got to the place where the bitumen road
turned into a dirt road, she lost control, took her hands off the steering wheel, but kept
the accelerator floor'd.
From the passengers seat I spun the steering wheel back to correct for the sideways
slide we were in, the car over correct'd, I spun the steering wheel the other way, the
car again over corrected and we slid sideways into a drainage ditch, flipped and
rolled a few times. Neither of us were wearing safety belts.
As we went through the drainage ditch I held Bridget down in her seat and towards me,
braced myself and held on tight.

If you think women ( and I will probably get bagged for bein' sexist ) have a lot of stuff
in their handbags, when a car rolls, everything goes flying about inside.
The amount of cosmetic aids etc that flew about inside that car was an absolute
eye opener. ( if it had been my car there would have been tools & hardware flying
everywhere, so cosmetic stuff is far less dangerous )
The car came to rest on one side, we clamber'd out, and I "piggy back" carried
Bridget about 2 km home, ( she had hurt an ankle ) all petty disputes forgotten
Bridget was in tears, apologising all the way. I was saying "your safe, I love you,
your safe, I love you" all the way home.

So yeah I have been there. Do I learn, well sort of. My best mate just purchased a
2004 Holden Monaro CVR ( sold in Europe as a Vauxhaul, I think ), and on the
Top Gear test track, driven by the Stig, beat an Aston Martin ( DB 8 ?? )

First night he had it, out we go at 2 am, with his wife ( a register'd nurse )
& us two in our 50's, supposedly responsible citizens, cruised off to a freeway,
no traffic about at that time of night. He had it just slightly sideways at warp speed
at one stage. I had a turn, got the whole thing airborne (only briefly & only a few feet
off the tar)

reminds me of the time I let my 17 year old unlicensed girlfriend drive my chevvy V8
I had that register'd as a 350 cubic inch motor ( for drag enthusiasts, that was a chev
"010" block, 4 bolt main bearings etc etc ) but I had built it with a "stroker" kit,
basically used a 400 chev crank and rods to give about 384 cubic inch capacity,
but these details confuse motor registry public servants, they are familiar with a 350
chev so it's easier to tell them it was a 350 for rego purposes.
Young Myfanwy & myself roaring through the cool night air on an open road.

If I was creat'd by God, then all I can say is he must have unlimit'd patience and an
infinite sense of humour.

I was 15 and I was a WWF fan at the time so I was waiting for the XFL. Meanwhile I had what doctors had thought was walking pneumonia. It had been getting worse as I stayed home and pretty much lay on the couch for over a week. On one Saturday my parents were going out and I had gotten to a point where I was extremely weak and running a ridiculously high fever. A doctor had told us I would be fine once the fever broke though so I encouraged my parents to go out so I could watch the premier XFL game. As the game went on I not only noticed it sucked but that I was having problems breathing and by this time i could barely walk. By the time my parents got back I relented and went to the emergency room. My "Walking Pneumonia" was actually double Pneumonia. I was in severe danger of dying that night and every day for the next week and a half while I was in a medically induced coma. I pulled out of it and had to relearn to walk, overall a 3 week hospital stay and a 6 week recovery (I rushed it because I wanted to get back to school after nearly 2 1/2 months away. By the time I came out of my coma and started watching TV again, the XFL had pretty much failed.

So suffice to say, The XFL nearly killed me.

If you had asked my mates, when I was 19, whether they thought I would make 30
most would have bet against it, I know some who did.
Thankfully my cousin Andy influenced me & is responsible for me radically reducing
the amount & way I drink alcohol (that happened when i was in my late 20's )
I can peel of a list of those mates from when I was 19 who are all dead and gone.
Several killed in motorcycle smashes, car smashes. Heroin & Cocaine got a few
more. One killed surfing by a white pointer shark. Two in the USA, one died of a
heart attack, aged 35 in Dallas, the other, she got run over & killed just outside
Disneyworld ( that is why I won't visit the USA, I am sure it's a lovely place, but it
seems a touch unlucky to me )
I'm still standing, don't ask me why I survived and so many mates, male & female
have not.
That is also why I will invariably help a stranger in hard times for no earthly reward,
and why I helped an elderly neighbour from 1996 to 2008, he was in his 90's, I have
this slightly crazy idea that those situations are opportunities given to me by God to
do some penance for all those less than noble things I have done. Old Bob Wade,
the elderly neighbour was a confirmed athiest, and there's me, mowing his lawns,
pruning shrubs and trees, painting his house, fixing his roof to stop it leaking in the
rain, putting out his bins, servicing his car etc for 12 years because I have this
crazy idea that God wanted me to help him as a means of earning forgiveness.

I also did that "foster parent" thing for a dozen or so years, where you pay money
to a register'd charity that helps provide clean water, basic health services and
basic education services to starvin' kids in what we affluent westerners call 3rd
world countries.
But, of course me, bein' me, I "foster'd" two girls in Muslim villages.

Man, you guys have some harrowing tales!

My own are pretty mild for the most part.

Mid-high school: I was in a van with my mom, sister, and her boyfriend going down a winding country road. As we were taking a sharp curve, another car coming towards us crossed the center line and my mom turned sharply causing the van to go off the road, making a complete end-over-front roll and a complete side ways roll as we came off the raised roadway and slammed into an old oak tree. We rushed out of the van because my mom said she smelled gas but I was caught in my seat belt and it took a little longer. My mom opened my door just as I got out of the belt and we got away from the van. Fortunately, the van did not explode, but it would have made the story way cooler. We went to the hospital but everyone was fine.

Junior year of college: I went on a rock climbing trip to West Virginia with a student group and was tired of waiting to climb so I went for a hike with a girl in the group. After hiking for a while along a cliff face, we came to a spot where a tree had fallen from somewhere well-above us and knocked down the path we were using with it. The ravine was about 50-75 ft down and of course was littered with fallen rocks and big broken branches that looked like stakes. There was one large twiggy branch that remained where the fallen tree had broken through the path. Still having a climber's spirit, I decided we could just grab onto that branch and use it as leverage as we jumped to the other side. I let the girl go first so I could help her and she got across fine. However, when I made the jump, the lingering branch came loose and I slipped and had to grab the loose soily ledge to prevent myself from falling to my disfigurement. Additionally, the twiggy branch hand caught my leg and lodged in my shoe. I didn't have enough of a grip to pull up so I had to get the girl to lend me a hand. She was panicking so I had to first calm her down and tell her in a calm and collected voice that I needed her to grab on to a nearby root and lend me her hand. With her hand, I was able to pull myself up and kick the branch away. As I was getting on the ledge saw the branch shatter to pieces in the ravine. The girl went back to camp but I stayed and hiked for another hour or two.

Last summer: I was coming home late at night on the commuter train from New York City and there was a teenager who was acting very strangely. He happened to get off at my stop. My girlfriend was with me and wanted to go home, but I wanted to linger a bit to watch the boy and make sure he was ok. It was raining and when he got off the train he just stood on the platform for a moment and then took off his shirt. He stood there for a few moments and then just let himself fall on to the tracks. I quickly walked over to where the boy was standing on the tracks and said, "Hey, is everything alright? It looks like you slipped off the platform." I could see the next train in the distance and knew I didn't have much time to get this teenager off the tracks. Fortunately, my interest in his situation seemed to sober him up a bit and he said, "Yea.... I slipped," and grabbed my outstretched hand and I helped him up. The train pulled in as he was brushing himself off. I started to ask him his name, but he interrupted me with a rant about how his parents were both dead and what was the point of going on. Before I could try to talk him down, he jumped off the platform on the other side and starting hurrying down the track. I was going to lose sight of him, so I called 911 and tried to get to the other side of the station from where I could keep an eye on him. As I was trying to get a better vantage point, I saw him approach a white car and talk to the people inside. I got to the other side of the station, but lost sight of him for a moment as he walked away from the white car and towards the tracks. I finished explaining the situation to the 911 operator and then approached a person who was standing near where the white car had been. I asked her if she had seen where the shirtless guy had gone and she said she hadnt seen anyone (which still bothers me because not only is the guy standing out because he is shirtless in the rain, but he had to have climbed a chain-link fence to get to where the white car had been). The police arrived moments later and asked me some questions, but I never heard if they found the kid. I checked police reports for a month though.

Several months ago, I had put my kids to bed and was playing my xbox at night. Suddenly an overwhelming dizziness took over... the dizziness you feel right before you puke. I closed my eyes, dipped my head down, shook my head a couples times to snap out of it, felt better and lifted my head and opened my eyes.
The top half of the vision in my right eye was black. It stayed that way for a solid 15 minutes, freaking me out in the process. Then the black 'curtain' started to raise, and 5 minutes later my vision was fine.

I immediately thought it was a stroke, but I'm only 35 and didn't want to wake the kids to go to the ER, so I shrugged it off.
Several days later, my dad called and I relayed the message to him and got chastised for not seeing the doctor. So I made an appointment and went. My doctor is pretty easy going, always deadpan when delivering any type of news. I told him my story, and he was immediately concerned, totally out of character for him. He it could be an "amaurosis fugax". Loss of blood from the carotid artery causes temporary blindness in almost the exact way it happened to me. I saw one of the top ophthalmologists in the midwest the very next day (emergency visit). He said there isn't any indication I had amaurosis, but some amaurosis doesn't necessary have any evidence after the event happens. My regular doctor thought there wasn't much else to do, so he put me on an aspirin dose and closed the books.

Well, I also take a stimulant psychiatric med as well, and when my med doc heard, she lowered my stimulants heavily until I saw a cardiologist. The cardiologist said there was a chance I could have a hole in the atrial wall of my heart, and if a clot in my veins passed into my arteries, it could get stuck in my eye. It is called a TIA. Basically, a stroke, but to an organ other than my brain.

I just underwent all the tests last week. No heart defect, but my cardiologist is still really nervous about it. He's almost positive it was a TIA. But at this point, there is no other tests he can think of to identify it. I'm on an aspirin regiment for life.

My eye had a stroke. And I didn't even realize it at the time. I hope it was just a weird rare thing that won't happen again (at least not be any worse). I have no guarantees that won't happen.

Not quite life or death in the situation, but found out later if whatever got stuck in the blood vessel got stuck in some other place, I could have died quickly, and suddenly, only to be found by my 9, 6, or 2 year old the next morning. It just freaks me the hell out.

Well, uh, idk if these are as hardcore but

November 2011:

Speeding away from rabid dogs in the Senegalese countryside, miles and hours away from any rabies treatment area, on a motorcycle speeding dangerously fast through unstable sand, sand which caused me to fall of the bike numerous times that month.

October 2009:

Guy with knife mugged me and I didn't see until the last second that he was pulling it on me, up to that moment I had been refusing, choosing to pretend he was begging and not mugging. Through my own stupidity I almost got myself stabbed.

July 2007:

Totally out of my head, I ran a red light that was not a major intersection, easy to miss, just an entrance to a neighborhood, but someone was turning left into my path at that time - if I had not swerve out of the way we'd probably both be in chairs or graves.

So yeah. Lot of those are my fault. Lol.

And some time when I was a kid when I almost drowned cause some punk-ass thought it would be fun to dunk me but didn't understand that you can't hold someone who can't swim down in the deepend for like 1 minute. Thank God for adrenaline - small, young, scrawny, weak that I was, I threw this big boy off of me underwater and floated up to life. Who knows if anyone knew what the fuck the guy was doing. Kinda creeped me out to think that I was about to get accidental-murdered.

Back in high school, probably senior year, I was riding with a friend going up a big hill on a state highway during a snowstorm. The roads were pretty slick and my friend was driving a bit faster than I would have been comfortable doing, so I put my seatbelt on (I stupidly hadn't been wearing it for some unknown reason). Not even two minutes later, our car fishtailed, did a 180 while doing about 45 on snow covered roads, tipped over and slammed into the culvert.

Somehow, our mid-90s Ford Explorer didn't tip over (they liked to tip over), but bounced hard enough off the snow banks in the culvert that it had enough momentum to right itself again - almost like a bumper car. Had I not put my seatbelt on two minutes prior, I would have been proper fucked, since the driver's side was the side that hit the ground and I would have been thrown across the car and into the driver's side window. Pretty damn scary.

During high school, sitting sideways in the back of a suburban with a couple friends as we drove out to a lake, one of them finds and picks up a hatchet. A couple jokes are made about getting into a wreck and chopping someone's head off. Of course, we get in a crash (two cars totalled, one bike rack destroyed, school bus bumper slightly scuffed). Good thing I thought fast enough to duck.

Last year, out in front of my porch having smoke break. I hear some yelling a little way off and what sounds like a couple firecrackers go off. Something zips through the branches of the tree I'm standing under and I go inside.

a) Won't bother a biker screwing a chick in his van.
b) Won't climb a 400m 88' rock face with only sneakers.